MILLIYET- Columnist Taha Akyol comments on the European Commission’s Progress Report on Turkey to be released later this week. A summary of his column is as follows:
On CNN Turk yesterday, veteran journalist Mehmet Ali Birand revealed highlights from the European Union’s as yet-unreleased Progress Report on Turkey. According to Birand, the report includes some truths, but egregious errors as well. But first of all, we must mention Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz’s impressions from his recent contacts in Europe. ‘The report cannot be said to be in either Turkey’s favor or disfavor,’ he told me. ‘It’s a technical document covering issues on which Turkey has been successful or unsuccessful.’ The report praises Turkey’s successes: bringing more opportunities for mother tongue usage as well as lifting the death penalty. ‘Final touches might be put on the article before its release this Wednesday,’ Yilmaz added. ‘It’s very important for Turkey that its harmonization laws be found sufficient and that there’s no suggestion at odds with our principle of our national and territorial unity.’
The report views Turkey as deficient in such areas as the prevention of torture, the independence of the judiciary and freedom of thought. It accuses the state of interfering with the judiciary and so compromising its impartiality. The report also puts forth the following scandalous falsehood: ‘There are nearly 1,000 inmates interred in Turkey’s prisons for crimes of thought.’ Birand, a careful journalist if there ever was one, confirmed the existence of this claim in the report.
Upon hearing of this, I immediately contacted former Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk in Trabzon, who was truly astonished. ‘It’s impossible! Such a claim is a scandal!’ he told me. ‘We removed all the sections from articles about ‘thought crime’ with the ‘Postponement Law,’ and all such prisoners were summarily released. Moreover, their number was extraordinarily low. When I was arguing that Article 312 should be changed, there were just two people jailed under its provisions. Then when this article was changed, they were set free. There might be a few people who have been arrested due to judicial or organizational crimes, but they certainly aren’t criminals of thought.’ Turk laid all this out in great legal detail. Of course there are some additional things that we should do to address freedom of thought. However, the claim of ‘nearly 1,000 criminals of thought’ is simply outrageous! Europe has been misled, and now it is misleading others as well. However, it’s our duty to explain and correct this misinformation, and we should work very hard towards this end.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION